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Man's Being, His Destiny and World Evolution
GA 226

20 May 1923, Oslo

5. Man's Being, His Destiny and World Evolution, Part 2

We cannot fully estimate the nature of man's being, as it appears at present, without fixing our eyes on extended periods through which he has passed in the course of his evolution. This will become evident when considering the facts described by me during recent days. Our souls undergo repeated earth-lives that are always separated from one another by the life between death and a new birth. In this manner our souls have passed through the most manifold periods of human evolution. By reflecting on these things, we shall clearly recognize that the nature of the human being can be comprehended only when we consider extended periods during which our souls have repeatedly lived on earth.

These matters have been discussed by me in previous Kristiania (Oslo) lectures, dealing with the sequence of evolutionary epochs, such as those that preceded and those that followed the Mystery of Golgotha. Today I wish to discuss this subject from a particular standpoint.

Mankind has undergone great changes in the course of its evolution. This fact is not sufficiently appreciated. People know that a Greek period existed, an Egyptian period, and other earlier periods. But, although they are aware of evolving culture-impulses, they believe that human beings in regard to their soul-life were just the same (at least, in historic ages) as they are today. This is not true. At a certain stage we come to a stop in this historic retrospect. We come to a long pause leading to a period which present-day scientists are very fond of describing as that of man's supposedly ape-like ancestors.

Mankind's evolution, however, was not in the least as people now imagine it. In order to understand the changes it has undergone, let us envisage the relatively great dependency, existing in the present age during the human being's first years of life, of the spirit and soul organism on the physical-bodily one.

You need only to consider the stage of early childhood until the change of teeth, and the extensive transformation accompanying the change of teeth which must strike every unprejudiced observer. The child's entire soul-constitution becomes different. We then find another life period lasting until puberty. We all know that at this age the development of spirit and soul is dependent on the development of the body. And, if we observe these things without prejudice, we notice the same dependence of spirit and soul on the body also at a later age lasting until the twenties, although today, in the time of youth movements (this is not said in a critical sense) it is just the young people who do not like to emphasize this dependence. Naturally, they consider themselves, at sixteen or seventeen, fully developed young women and young men; and those vaunting unusual mental faculties write newspaper articles at twenty-one. These young people would thus like to hush up the fact that their spirit and soul is greatly dependent on their bodily organism. At any rate, the present-day human being becomes more or less independent of the body once he has reached a certain age. A man in his twenties is an adult who does not feel himself as dependent upon his body as would a child were it to pass in full consciousness through the stages between change of teeth and puberty.

There was still a feeling in comparatively recent ages that the human being matured gradually. It was then clearly realized that the so-called apprentice had to be treated differently from the journey-man; and a master's rank could not be attained until relatively late in life.

As regards present-day man, however, it can be asserted that after a certain age, his spirit and soul are no longer greatly dependent on his body. Of course, on reaching a venerable age, we notice a renewed dependence on our physical organism. When the legs become shaky, when the face becomes wrinkled, when the hair becomes grey, we cannot then deny the influence of the body. This, however, is not ascribed to a genuine parallelism of body and soul. People of today feel that, even though the bodily forces decline, soul and spirit remain, and must remain, more or less independent of the bodily-physical. Yet this was not always the case. If we go back to earlier epochs of mankind's evolution, we find the human being even in his old age remaining as intensely dependent on his body as does a child's soul today remain dependent on its body between the change of teeth and puberty. And if we are enabled—not by external history, but by spiritual science—to go back to the first period of evolution after the great Atlantean catastrophe which caused a new configuration of the earth's continents, we come to what I called in my Occult Science the primeval Indian epoch. The human being then felt himself, even after having reached his fifties, to be just as dependent on the physical as the child's soul is dependent on the change of teeth, and the youthful person's soul on puberty. This means: Just as we experience today during childhood the ascending line of growth, so ancient man experienced, in his fifties, the descending line within spirit and soul. Then things happened in such a way that a man, on reaching his fifties, matured inwardly just by becoming older, in a similar manner as modern man matures on attaining puberty. And at that time, seven or eight thousand years before the Mystery of Golgotha, human beings eagerly looked forward, during their whole life, to this stage of existence. For everyone could say to himself: Something will be revealed to me out of my bodily constitution that I could not experience in younger years, before I became forty-nine or fifty. Naturally, such an idea is bound to shock modern men most profoundly. You only need to think of a present-day man who is absolutely sure of being a finished product after reaching the twenties. What could be said if he had to wait until the age of maturity revealed something to him which he could not know before, which he could not feel, and experience before!

In ancient India, however, man's bodily constitution enabled him to feel, already in his fifties, something like a gradual separation of the physical body from spirit and soul. He felt more and more how the physical approximated, as it were, the corpse-like. And he felt in this estrangement of the physical body, in this approach of the physical body to the earth-elements, a liberation of spirit and soul. By considering the body merely as a garment, he felt its relationship to the earth, to all that would belong to earth after death. It was less amazing to ancient than to modern men that the body had to be discarded, delivered to the earth-forces. For ancient man passed slowly and gradually through this process of discarding the body.

This sounds paradoxical, because it implies the terrifying conception of having a physical body that is slowly becoming a corpse. Ancient man, however, did not think of his body as a burdensome object passing, as it were, into a kind of putrefaction. Instead, he thought of it as an independent sheath or shell which, even though becoming earth-like, was yet full of life. Yet the physical body, at the age of fifty, assumed a sheath-like, shell-like character.

This gradual becoming similar to the earth taught ancient man something that can be known today only through abstract science. The inner nature of metals, for instance, became known to him. At the age of fifty, he was instinctively able to differentiate between copper, silver, and gold. He felt the resemblance of these metals to his own organism gradually turning to earth. A rock-crystal called forth in him other feelings than furrowed soil. By aging, man gained wisdom concerning terrestrial matters.

This fact influenced primeval civilization. The young, looking up to the old, said to themselves: These ancients are wise. Once I have become as old as they are, I shall also be wise. Such an attitude caused a profound veneration and a tremendous respect for old age.

In those ancient days of mankind's evolution (the epoch of primeval India), a lofty civilization, connected with a wondrous veneration, a wondrous respect for old age, existed in a certain part of the world (not in that part, however, inhabited by men with receding foreheads, such as are excavated today by anthropologists). And we must ask ourselves: How did it actually happen that men passed through these experiences?

It did happen, because primeval man lived less intensively in his physical body than we do. Today man crawls into the very core of his physical body, the experiences of which he shares. Thus he feels himself to be identical, at one with his physical body. And we must undergo a common destiny with whatever is felt to be at one with us. Because, in those ancient times, men felt themselves more self-dependent within the physical body; because their thinking was more imaginative; because their feeling was like an inward weaving and living in the world of reality—for all these reasons their physical body from the beginning seemed to them like a sheath in which they were encased. This sheath began to harden as life drew near its end. A man in his fifties could feel how the body developed increasingly in accord with the outer world, thus becoming a mediator that could instill in him wisdom concerning the outer world.

The situation changed when civilized mankind of those days passed into the next age, called by me in my Occult Science the primeval Persian. Then a man in his fifties could no longer experience this dependence of his physical body upon the earthly. Instead, the aging physical body exerted a different influence on those still in their forties, from the forty-second or forty-third year to the forty-ninth or fiftieth. During these years, they participated intensively in the change of seasons. They experienced spring, summer, autumn, winter within their body. As it were, their body began to bud and blossom during spring and summer, and went into decline during autumn and winter. Human life took part in the seasons, the changing air-currents ...

And this perception of the changing air-currents, the changing seasons, was connected with another thing. Man felt that his speech was being transformed into something no longer belonging essentially to him. Just as the primeval Indian felt that, once he had attained the fifties, his whole physical body did not really belong to him, but more or less to the earth, so the primeval Persian felt that the body, by producing speech, belonged to the people around him. At fifty, a member of primeval Indian culture no longer said: I am walking. If expressing his own feelings, he would say: My body is walking. He did not say: I enter through the door; but instead: My body carries me through the door. For he experienced his body as something related to the outer world, to the earth. And, five or six millennia before the Mystery of Golgotha, a member of the Persian civilization felt that speech came forth by itself, that he had it in common with his whole surroundings. At that time, people all over the world did not live in such an international way as today, but as members of definite folk communities. They felt how speech became alienated from them; how, if expressing their real feelings, they could say: “It is speaking within me.”

It was really the case that people after attaining the forties expressed the following in a certain, very respectful sense: Divine-spiritual forces are speaking through me. And the human being also felt as if his breath did not belong to him any longer, but was dedicated to the surrounding world.

On reaching his late thirties, a member of the Egypto-Chaldaean culture—which lasted from the third or fourth millennium until the eighth or ninth pre-Christian century—had a similar feeling with regard to his thoughts, his mental images. The Egyptian or Chaldaean felt in his thirty-fifth year as if his mental images were connected with heavenly forces, the course of the stars.

As the primeval Indian, at the end of his life, felt the connection of his body with the earth, as the primeval Persian felt the connection of his speech, his breath, with the seasons and the surrounding world, so a member of ancient Egyptian, of ancient Chaldaean culture felt that his thoughts were directed by the course of the stars. And he felt how divine star-powers were interwoven with his thoughts.

In Egypto-Chaldaean culture, the human being felt this dependence of his thoughts upon heavenly powers until his forty-second or forty-third year. Subsequently no new element entered into human development. The primeval Persian, too, felt as if his thoughts had been given to him by the stars; but he attained, moreover, in his forties the relationship to speech that I have described. Likewise, the primeval Indian, from his thirty-fifth year, possessed this relationship to the star-powers. Therefore he considered astrology as something self-evident. In his forties, he also attained the dependence of speech upon his surroundings. In his fifties, moreover, he experienced how his physical body became objective, became shadow-like. He accustomed himself, as it were, to the dying, because dying had approached him already in his fifties. The soul was less firmly joined to the body. Hence outer conditions could bring forth these bodily changes. This fact was perceived by the soul, experienced by the soul. And thereby man, as he grew older, merged himself more and more with the world.

Then came the Graeco-Latin era, which lasted from the eighth pre-Christian century until the fifteenth post-Christian century, for until then, the echo of Graeco-Latin culture still resounded in all civilized countries. This marked the age when man felt himself until his thirties still dependent upon his physical body, but no longer dependent on the stars, the seasons, the earth. He felt himself firmly entrenched within his physical body. The Greek felt a concord, a harmony between the soul and spirit element and the bodily-physical. Only this bodily-physical element no longer separated itself from him. This is all very difficult to express, for we are prevented, by the customary and totally inadequate historical teaching given to us in school, from forming a conception of these changes in mankind's evolution.

There then came the time when the human being became connected with his physical body in such a way that his physical body was committed no longer to participate in the course of the universe directed by spiritual laws. Now man was completely bound to his physical body. Mankind did not reach this stage until the eighth pre-Christian century.

Thus a great transformation of mankind's whole evolution occurred in as far as it concerned civilized mankind. Although the human being on reaching the thirties felt himself still at one with his physical body, he no longer was separated from it. He felt himself united with his physical body. It could no longer unveil to him the world's mysteries. During this period, therefore, mankind attained an entirely new relation to death. At an earlier time, when the human being prepared himself for dying, as it were, by undergoing a separation from his physical body, this dying signified for him nothing but a transformation in the midst of life; for, in his fifties, he became familiar gradually with the process of dying. He experienced dying as a process which merged him, in a wisdom-filled and blissful way, with the universe. He experienced death as something guiding him into a world in which he had already lived during his earth-life. Death at that time was something entirely different from what it became later. It might be said: More and more the human being was confronted by the possibility that soul and spirit might participate in death.

Let us compare Hellenism with the primeval Indian epoch. In primeval India, the body gained independence. The individual was aware of being something else besides his body which became independent and sheath-like. He could not have possibly conceived the thought that death might be the end. Such a thought did not exist among human beings of the primeval Indian period. Only by degrees, and most decisively in the eighth pre-Christian century, did man say to himself (still out of an unconscious feeling, because he was unable to think about these things in a rationalistic way): My body dies; but, with regard to soul and spirit, I am at one with my body. No longer did he notice the difference between the bodily and the spirit and soul element.

The human being became dominated by a thought that terrified him when it first arose out of dark spiritual depths in the ninth or eighth century before the Mystery of Golgotha. It was the thought: Might not my soul pursue the same path as my body—die, as my body dies?

This thought which in the primeval Indian epoch would have been totally inconceivable now came more and more to the fore. Out of this mood emerged words like those famous ones of the Greek hero: Better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of the shades.

This was the time when mankind nurtured a mood that grew in the right way towards the Mystery of Golgotha. For, what brought forth in ancient human beings the ability to preserve a freshness of soul which made it impossible for them to conceive that the soul might take the same path of death as the body?

This freshness of soul, this independence of soul with regard to feeling, was given to ancient man by this knowledge: I have had a life—for he could look into this life—which was pre-earthly; through it I passed with my soul and spirit before I descended to the physical world. While dwelling in this higher world, I was united with the exalted Sun-Being.

The ancient Mysteries had evolved a teaching which pointed out that man, in his pre-earthly existence, was united with the spirit of the sun, just as in earth-life his body is united with the physical light of the sun.

The teachers in the ancient Mysteries told the following to their pupils who, in their turn, told it again to others (they did not designate the exalted Sun-Being as the Christ, but He was the Christ, and we may therefore be permitted today to use this name): The Christ is a Being Who shall never descend to the earth. You, however, dwelt in your pre-earthly existence, before descending to earth, within spiritual worlds in communion with the Christ. And the force of the Christ has given you the faculty of making your soul independent of the body.

This instinctive memory of a pre-earthly existence was lost through the soul's increasing identification with its physical body. And, in the Greek epoch, earthly man could employ his instinctive consciousness-forces only by looking at physical life. The Greek was able to live such a harmonious earth-life, because his outlook into the divine worlds of the spirit had faded away. He was so successful in subduing the sensible-physical that the spiritual vanished more or less from his life's horizon. No longer did civilized men have a consciousness of the fact that before descending to earth, they dwelt in the presence of the exalted Sun-Being Who was later called the Christ. Now darkness encompassed those who looked at pre-earthly, prenatal existence. And thus arose the mystery of death.

What happened henceforth must be envisaged as something concerning not only mankind but also the gods. The divine-spiritual powers who sent the human being down to earth gave him the impulses towards the development that I have just described. Since his spirit and soul became increasingly merged with the physical body; since, as it were, his spirit and soul became identical with the physical, and since, therefore, the mystery of death confronted also the spirit and soul, the divine-spiritual powers who had sent the human being down to earth were threatened with the danger that he might be lost to the gods, that his soul, as well as his body, might die.

Yet man would never have become a free, independent being, had he not grown into his body during this epoch. Man could only become free in evolution if his view of the pre-earthly was dimmed. He was obliged to stand on earth—totally forsaken, as it were—within his physical body's abode. Thus his independent ego could radiate and gleam up.

For this shining forth of the independent ego can be best accomplished by the human being entering completely into his physical body. When man grows upward into the worlds of spirit and soul, his ego retreats; he is being merged with the objective element of spirit and soul. Man could become a free ego-being only if given the impulse by the gods to merge himself more and more with his physical body. He was thus, however, confronted by the mystery of death; for the physical body was bound to be claimed by death.

Now, if man's vision had not been awakened in another way, all of mankind on earth would have become more and more convinced that the soul and physical body were both dying together. And, if nothing else had happened; if history had continued its course in a straight line, all of us today would have come to the common conviction that the soul as well as the body are doomed to be laid in the grave.

At this point, the divine-spiritual powers decided to send down on earth the exalted Sun-Being, the Christ, in order that men, who no longer had any knowledge of their communion with the Christ during pre-earthly existence, could gain consciousness of their communion with the Christ after He had descended on earth and had shared on Golgotha and in Palestine their human destiny in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. The God descended into the earthly world at the moment of mankind's world historic evolution when men had lost their feeling of communion with the Sun-Being beyond the earthly world.

Why did the Christ come down on earth? Because human beings, having fought their way to the attainment of complete ego-consciousness, needed Him on earth. Men had to experience the presence of a victor, who could die and resurrect himself—be the vanquisher of death.

In the course of history, this mystery had to be set before mankind at a time when man, no longer able to look back into pre-earthly existence, was granted a view of his communion with the giver of man's immortality, with the Christ. It is a divine event, and not merely for mankind, that the Christ was sent down on earth from higher worlds. For the human race would have fallen away from the gods, had they not sent down upon earth the loftiest among them, in order that He undergo a human destiny, a human existence, thus interweaving a divine event with earthly-human events and mankind's entire world evolution.

The Mystery of Golgotha cannot be comprehended unless we regard it not only as a human event, but also as a divine event. The fact must be grasped that something which could be envisaged previously only in the divine worlds could now be envisaged in the earthly world.

Possibly you might raise the objection: Not all men have become followers of the Christ; many do not believe in the Christ. Must all these have the opinion that at death their soul would be laid in the grave with the body?

This, however, is not the way in which the Mystery of Golgotha may be interpreted. It is valid through all the centuries preceding ours that the Christ, in His infinite compassion overflowing with grace, died not only for His immediate followers, but for all men in all ages, everywhere on earth.

All men on earth have been redeemed from the riddle of death by the Christ. At first, this deed did not touch human consciousness. It is natural, however, that some men were found who could consciously grasp the grandeur and significance of the Mystery of Golgotha. Yet the Christ did die and did rise as much for the Chinese, Japanese, and Hindus as for the Christians.

Just because since the fifteenth century human evolution must increasingly regard intellectualism as its highest soul-force, and just because this intellectual impulse will become more and more powerful in the future, have we approached an epoch when it is incumbent upon the earth's entire population to grasp, with its ever growing consciousness, what was brought forth by the Mystery of Golgotha.

Thus it will become necessary that the Mystery of Golgotha be penetrated by a knowledge that can be really understood by all men on earth.

In preceding centuries, Christianity developed in a way that still conformed to the peculiarities of ancient ethnic religions. Christian development had not yet attained universality. The Christian missionaries who went among the followers of other religions found little or no understanding, because the Christ was presented as a separate god who had the same qualities as those possessed by the ancient heathen folk deities. This was the manner in which Christianity had been disseminated. Why had Constantine, why Chlodvig, accepted Christianity?—Because they believed that the Christian god would be a more powerful helper than their former gods. They exchanged, as it were, their former gods for the Christian god. Hence the Christ had to take on many qualities of the ancient folk deities. These qualities have adhered to the Christ through the centuries.

In this way, however, Christianity could not become a universal religion. On the contrary, it had to retreat more and more before intellectualism. And we have seen, particularly in the nineteenth century, many a theological development which understood nothing whatsoever of the Christ-event in its super-sensible aspect. Here the desire was to speak only of Jesus, the man, although conceding that as man he towered above all other men. Yet, henceforth, the desire was only to speak of Jesus, the man, and not of Christ, the God.

We must, nevertheless, be able to speak again of Christ, the God, because this Christ, while undergoing His destiny through the Mystery of Golgotha, manifested to men on earth what He had formerly signified to them, before they had descended to earth from the high heavens.

Hence, we must state that the ancient folk religions were primarily local religions. People prayed to the god of Thebes, to the god on Mount Olympus. They were local deities who could be worshipped only in near-by places. Thus, from the beginning, these ancient faiths were bound to certain territories.

Later the local gods, who had their abode in a definite spot, were replaced by gods bound to the personalities of single men, of the guiding folk heroes. Yet a people's god was either a still living folk hero or his surviving soul, the ancestral folk soul. All religious faiths had a restricted character.

With Christianity, however, there appeared a world religion which bestowed a spiritual element upon the whole earth, just as the sun bestows a physical element upon the whole earth. The climate in the vicinity of Mount Olympus is different from the climate in the vicinity of Thebes; the latter, in its turn, is different from the climate in the vicinity of Bombay. If a religious faith nestles close to a locality, it cannot spread beyond this locality. The sun, however, sheds its light on all the earth's localities, shines upon all men as the same sun.

When, however, the human form was taken on by that God Whose physical reflection shone forth in the sun's radiance, then the human race received a God who could be accepted as God by all men on earth. If the possibility is found of penetrating the being of this Christ-Divinity, we shall be able to represent Him as the God acceptable to all mankind. Today we stand only at the beginning of anthroposophical teachings. As it were, we are still stammering the language of Anthroposophy. Yet Anthroposophy will continue to develop more and more. And a part of this development will consist in its capability of finding words to describe the Mystery of Golgotha—words of a kind that spiritual science can bring to the Hindus, the Chinese, to all men on earth; and which will elucidate the Mystery of Golgotha in such a way that the Hindus, the Chinese, the Japanese will be unable to reject what is told them concerning the Mystery of Golgotha.

For this purpose, we must attach a genuinely serious significance to all that represents Christian tradition. Throughout the centuries, people have subjected themselves more or less to the words of the Gospels. They have studied these Gospels in a way commensurate with their understanding of these ancient books. We have certainly no intention of speaking against the validity of the Gospels. Our cycles on each of the Gospels attempt to penetrate, by means of special anthroposophical interpretation, into the deeper meaning of these Gospels. Yet one thing must be said: Why is the passage at the end of one Gospel taken so lightly? There it is written: 1 have still many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. And why are the words of another Gospel not taken more seriously: And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the earth-cycles? For the Christ spoke the full truth. He could have said to men other things than those recorded in the Gospels. Only those Christ-words are recorded in the Gospels, for the understanding of which the men of that epoch—few in number—were ready. But mankind must become more and more mature in the course of earthly evolution. From the Mystery of Golgotha on, the Christ dwelt among men as the Living Christ, and not as the dead Christ. And He is still present among us. If we learn to speak His language, we shall recognize His presence; we shall recognize the truth of His words: And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the earth-cycles. And the anthroposophical world view desires to speak His language, His spiritual language. The anthroposophical world view desires to speak in such a way of nature, of all the beings on earth, of the starry sky and the sun that, by means of this language, the Mystery of Golgotha may be understood; that the Christ may be experienced as the One Who is ever present.

And, also after the Mystery of Golgotha, we may regard as Christ-words all that we have gained from the spiritual world; aided by that power which, through the Mystery of Golgotha, descended from heaven to earth. If as men we speak of the spiritual worlds, we may make true the word of St. Paul: Not I, but the Christ in me. For today we have entered an age in which we cannot even emulate the Greeks who, although feeling themselves still at one with their physical body, yet felt this physical body as something harmonious and independent. Today we penetrate at a still earlier age than the Greeks into that which underlies our physical body, thus separating ourselves from the spiritual around us. We can deepen our being only by seeking the union with the God Who descended from heaven to earth. And we can feel ourselves united only with that God Who entered the earthly sphere, because men on earth could no longer enter the heavenly sphere with their immediate and ordinary consciousness. By finding the Christ, we also find anew the approach to the super-sensible world; not now, however, by means of the physical body (this was the case in ancient times), but by means of heightened soul-power. And today, when the parallelism between the development of body and soul lasts only up to the age of twenty (later on it will last a still shorter period), this heightened soul-power can be attained alone by immersing ourselves, in the midst of the sensible events of earthly evolution, into the knowledge of a super-sensible event: the Mystery of Golgotha. Everything on earth took place in a sensible way. Only in the Mystery of Golgotha something super-sensible mingled with earthly events. And this can be understood only out of a super-sensible knowledge.

Hence the union with the Christ awakens in our human souls the powerful faculty of attaining a relationship to the super-sensible world—a relationship formerly attained by human beings through being connected with their physical body in such a way that the body could become sheath-like. Thus, feeling the approach of death before physical death occurred, they merged themselves with the spirit prevailing in their surroundings.

We must attain by means of the soul what could be attained, in earlier days, through the mediation of the body. For, although we admire in the highest degree what has been preserved of Indian writings—which did not originate, however, from the earliest primeval Indian epoch, but from a later period—although we admire what has been bequeathed to us through the glory of the Vedas, the grandeur of the Vedanta-philosophy, the radiant splendor of the Bhagavad-Gita, we must, nevertheless, recognize the fact that this could be attained in ancient times only because the body reflected to the human being, as he grew older, a certain spirituality. Ancient man was compensated for the waning of his physical existence, which set in after the thirty-fifth year, by having, as it were, the spirit pressing out of his body, as the latter became hard, withered and wrinkled. And this spirit was perceived by the human being. The great philosophical poems of ancient times were not composed by youths, but by patriarchs who had acquired wisdom. It resulted from what was given by the body. In the present stage of human evolution, which differs from the ancient ones, we must receive from the soul, as it grows more powerful, what was formerly contributed by the body. Our body becomes old. We must remain united with it. We cannot let the spirit emerge from this body, because we have utilized it since early childhood.

If we did not do this, we could never be free men. This must be accepted as our rightful earthly destiny. One fact, however, must be made clear to us: Our soul has to gain strength. Since the spiritual strength formerly corresponding to the waning body flows to us no longer we must attain it by strengthening our soul through our own effort. And we shall experience this strengthening of the soul by looking, in a genuine and living way, toward a great and powerful event: The divine event that took place as the Mystery of Golgotha in the midst of earthly life. In beholding the Mystery of Golgotha and becoming conscious that its after-effect is still dwelling among us, is still existing in the spiritual-super-sensible sphere, our spirit and soul become strengthened and approach the spiritual world anew.

The Christ has descended to earth in order that men, who no longer see Him in heaven by means of their memory, may be permitted to see Him on earth. Seen from today's viewpoint, this is what rightly places the Mystery of Golgotha before our spiritual eye.

The disciples, who had preserved a remnant of ancient clairvoyance, could still have the Christ as their teacher when He dwelt among them after the resurrection in the spiritual body.

Yet this power gradually fell away from them. And its complete disappearance is symbolically represented through the Festival of the Ascension.

The disciples sank into profound sadness, because they were forced to believe that the Christ was no longer among them. They had taken part in the event of Golgotha. Now, however, they had to believe that the Christ had moved away from their consciousness, that the Christ was no longer on earth. Thus they were plunged into deep sorrow, for they had seen the Christ-figure disappear in the clouds, that is, move away from their consciousness.

But every genuine knowledge is born out of sorrow, of suffering, of grief. True, profound knowledge is never born out of joy. True, profound knowledge is born out of suffering. And out of the suffering, which encompassed the disciples of the Christ at the Festival of the Ascension, out of this deep soul-anguish arose the Mystery of Pentecost. The disciples could no longer view the Christ by means of their outer, instinctive clairvoyance. But the force of the Christ unfolded within them. The Christ had sent to them the spirit enabling their soul to experience the Christ-existence in their innermost depths.

This experience gave meaning to the first Festival of Pentecost occurring in human evolution. The Christ, Who had disappeared from the outer, clairvoyant view still clinging to the disciples as a heritage of ancient evolutionary periods, appeared at Pentecost within the disciples' inner experience. The fiery tongues signify nothing but the arising of the inner Christ in the souls of His pupils, the souls of the disciples. Out of inner necessity, the Festival of Pentecost had to follow the Festival of the Ascension.

Fünfter Vortrag

Man kann das Menschenwesen in der Gegenwart nicht voll beurteilen, wenn man nicht einen größeren Abschnitt ins Auge faßt, durch den hindurch sich die Menschen entwickelt haben. Denn wir müssen doch bedenken - das geht aus den übrigen Darstellungen der Anthroposophie hervor, geht auch aus den Darstellungen hervor, die ich in diesen Tagen hier schon gegeben habe -, unsere Seelen machen wiederholte Erdenleben durch, zwischen denen immer das Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt liegt, so daß wir durch die verschiedensten Entwickelungsepochen der Menschheit mit unserer Seele da durchgegangen sind. Bedenkt man dieses, so muß man sich klar darüber sein, daß man das Menschenwesen ganz nur erfassen kann, wenn man einen größeren Zeitabschnitt berücksichtigt, in dem unsere Seelen wiederholt durch das Erdenleben durchgegangen sind.

Ich habe auch schon hier in Vorträgen in Kristiania über die aufeinanderfolgenden Entwickelungsperioden, wie sie dem Mysterium von Golgatha vorangegangen sind, wie sie auf dieses Mysterium von Golgatha folgen, gesprochen. Ich muß das heute wiederum von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte her tun. Die Menschheit hat im Laufe ihrer Entwickelung große Veränderungen durchgemacht. Das berücksichtigt man gewöhnlich viel zu wenig. Man denkt so leicht: Nun, der Mensch ist eben so und so, und wenn man in die Vergangenheit zurückschaut, so ist der Mensch im wesentlichen immer so gewesen. Man weiß, es hat eine Griechenzeit gegeben, eine ägyptische Zeit, es hat vorher andere Zeiten gegeben. Für die Zeiten, von denen man in dieser Weise spricht, denkt man, das Menschenwesen wäre eben immer ungefähr so gewesen wie heute. Man sieht hin auf Kulturentwickelungsimpulse, aber was die Hauptsache des Seelenlebens betrifft, so denkt man sich, wenigstens für die historischen Zeiten, die Menschen seien immer so gewesen wie heute. Allerdings, dann macht man eine große lange Pause in der rückwärtigen Betrachtung und kommt gewöhnlich zu dem Stadium, das man heute mit einer gewissen Vorliebe beschreibt, zu dem Stadium, wo der Mensch affenartig gewesen sein soll.

So wie man sich da die Menschenentwickelung vorstellt, war sie durchaus nicht. Um zu begreifen, wie sie sich verändert hat, wollen wir uns einmal vergegenwärtigen, daß in unserem Zeitalter für die ersten Lebensalter des Menschen eine verhältnismäßig große Abhängigkeit zwischen dem Seelisch-Geistigen, das sich in uns entwickelt, und dem Physisch-Leiblichen besteht.

Bedenken Sie nur einmal das erste Kindesalter bis zum Zahnwechsel hin und die große Veränderung, die jedem unbefangenen Beobachtenden auffallen muß, die ich auch hier öfters charakterisiert habe, die mit dem Menschen vorgeht, wenn er den Zahnwechsel durchmacht. Der Leib macht den Zahnwechsel durch, die ganze Seelenverfassung des Kindes wird eine andere. Dann wiederum ist eine Lebensepoche bis zur Geschlechtsreife. Wir wissen alle, daß mit der körperlichen Entwickelung in diesem Zeitalter auch die geistig-seelische in Abhängigkeit einhergeht. Und wir bemerken auch für das spätere Lebensalter bis in die Zwanzigerjahre hinein, wenn wir nur unbefangen genug dazu sind, die Abhängigkeit des seelisch-geistigen Wesens von dem Körperlichen, wenn auch heute in der Zeit der Jugendbewegung — wir sagen es ohne einen abträglichen Ton — gerade bei der Jugend von dieser Abhängigkeit nicht mehr stark und gern gesprochen wird. Man denkt natürlich, man ist, wenn man so das sechzehnte, siebzehnte Lebensjahr erreicht hat, eben eine junge Dame, ein junger Mann, vollentwickelt, und wenn man dann besondere geistige Fähigkeiten sich zuschreibt, schreibt man mit einundzwanzig Jahren Feuilletons. Aber jedenfalls, man möchte gern verwischen, daß für diese Lebensalter doch noch eine sehr starke Abhängigkeit des SeelischGeistigen vom Körperlichen vorhanden ist. Auf jeden Fall aber hört für den heutigen Menschen in einem gewissen Lebensalter diese Abhängigkeit doch mehr oder weniger auf. Der Mensch wird in den Zwanzigerjahren eben ein Erwachsener. Und dann fühlt er sich nicht mehr in der Weise von dem Körperlichen abhängig, wie sich abhängig fühlen müßte, wenn es diese Zustände mit vollem Bewußtsein durchmachte, das Kind vom Zahnwechsel, vom Heranreifen des Zahnwechsels, wiederum vom Heranreifen zur Geschlechtsteife und so weiter. Es war noch ein Gefühl in verhältnismäßig nicht weit zurückliegenden Zeitaltern von diesem Heranreifen des Menschen vorhanden, indem man deutlich unterschieden hat, daß der Mensch anders behandelt werden müsse, wenn er die sogenannte Lehrzeit durchmacht, die Gesellenzeit, und die Meisterzeit kam ja verhältnismäßig erst ziemlich spät.

Aber für den heutigen Menschen, wie gesagt, stimmt das durchaus, daß er von einem gewissen Lebensalter ab in seinem Seelisch-Geistigen sich nicht mehr stark abhängig fühlt von dem Körperlichen. Gewiß, man merkt, wenn man ein gewisses stattliches Alter schon erreicht hat, daß man dann wiederum abhängig wird von dem Körperlichen. Man merkt ja, wenn die Beine nicht mehr recht wollen, wenn Runzeln auftreten im Gesicht, wenn die Haare sich bleichen, daß da auch eine gewisse Abhängigkeit vom Körperlichen eintritt. Aber diesem schreibt man nicht einen wirklichen Parallelismus des Körperlichen und des Seelischen zu. Man fühlt halt, daß der Körper in seinen Kräften nachläßt, aber man fühlt, daß man im Geistig-Seelischen eigentlich doch mehr oder weniger unabhängig bleibt und bleiben müsse auch in unserem Zeitalter von diesem Körperlich-Physischen. Das war aber nicht immer so, sondern wenn wir in frühere Zeitepochen der Menschheitsentwickelung zurückgehen, dann finden wir, daß die Menschen bis in hohe Lebensalter hinauf so lebendig abhängig blieben von ihrem Körperlichen, wie heute das Kind vom Zahnwechsel, von der Geschlechtsteife abhängig ist in seinem Seelischen vom Körperlichen. Und wenn wir zurückgehen bis in die erste Epoche, die wir nicht äußerlich historisch, aber geisteswissenschaftlich verfolgen können als die Epoche der Menschheitsentwickelung nach der großen, gewaltigen atlantischen Katastrophe, durch die sich die Kontinente auf der Erde umgelagert haben, wenn wir in diese erste Epoche zurückgehen, die ich in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» die urindische genannt habe, da fühlte sich der Mensch, so wie das Kind vom Zahnwechsel, der Jüngling und die Jungfrau von der Geschlechtsreife abhängig vom Physisch-Leiblichen bis hinauf in das Lebensalter der Fünfzigerjahre. Das heißt, wie man die aufsteigende Wachstumsentwickelung heute in der Kindheit miterlebt, so erlebte man die absteigende Entwickelung im Seelisch-Geistigen mit. Und geradeso in den Fünfzigerjahten, da war es so, daß die Menschen, wenn sie in diesem Lebensalter ankamen, innerlich zu etwas heranreiften dadurch, daß sie einfach älter geworden sind, wie man zu etwas heranreift heute, wenn man die Geschlechtsreife erlangt hat. Und es war dies das Zeitalter, sieben-, achttausend Jahre vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha, wo der Mensch erwartungsvoll sein ganzes Leben hindurch auf dieses Älterwerden hinblickte, weil er sich sagte: Da offenbart sich mir einfach aus meiner körperlichen Beschaffenheit heraus etwas, was ich im früheren Lebensalter, bevor ich neunundvierzig, fünfzig Jahre alt werde, einfach nicht erfahren kann. - Es ist das, was in jener Zivilisation vorhanden war, etwas, was für den heutigen Menschen natürlich furchtbar schockant ist. Man stelle sich nur heute einmal einen Menschen vor, der da doch ganz sicher glaubt, wenn er die Zwanzigerjahre erreicht hat, ist er einfach ein gemachter Mensch. Man stelle sich vor, der soll nun warten, daß sich ihm einfach durch das Alter später etwas enthüllt, was man vorher nicht wissen kann, was man vorher nicht fühlen und empfinden kann!

Durch die körperliche Beschaffenheit kam man nämlich dahin, in den Fünfzigerjahren schon etwas von dem zu fühlen, was man eine Loslösung des physischen Leibes von dem Seelisch-Geistigen nennen könnte. Man fühlte gewissermaßen immer mehr und mehr, wie sich das Leibliche näherte dem Leichnammäßigen. Man fühlte in diesem Fremdwerden des physischen Leibes, in diesem Entgegengehen des physischen Leibes den Erdenelementen gegenüber, man fühlte das Freiwerden des Seelisch-Geistigen. Und gerade indem man den Leib dann wie ein Kleid fühlte, empfand man das Verwandte des Leibes mit dem Erdigen, mit demjenigen, was einmal im Tode der Erde angehören wird. Man war gewissermaßen weniger erstaunt als heute, daß man den Leib einmal ablegen und den Erdenmächten übergeben muß, weil man diesen Prozeß des Ablegens des Leibes langsam und allmählich durchmachte. Das klingt paradox, weil man sich vorstellt, daß es schrecklich ist, seinen physischen Leib wie einen werdenden Leichnam an sich zu tragen. Aber so war das eben nicht, daß man ihn nur fühlte wie etwas, was unbequem ist, was gewissermaßen in eine Art von Fäulnis übergeht. Nein, man fühlte ihn als eine selbständige Hülle und Schale, die man aber durchaus trotz ihres Erdigwerdens lebenskräftig fühlte, aber schalenhaft, hüllenhaft wurde für diese Fünfzigerjahre der menschliche physische Leib. Dadurch aber erfuhr man etwas, einfach wegen dieser Beschaffenheit des Leibes, durch dieses Ähnlichwerden des Leibes mit dem Irdischen, was man heute nur durch abstrakte Wissenschaft erfahren kann. Man erfuhr zum Beispiel etwas über die innere Beschaffenheit der Metalle. Ein Mensch, der fünfzig Jahre alt war, hatte einen Instinkt für die Unterscheidung von Kupfer, Silber, Gold. Da fühlte er dann das Ähnliche dieser Metalle gegenüber seinem erdigwerdenden Organismus. Er fühlte anders gegenüber einem Bergkristall als gegenüber der Ackererde. Ein Mensch wurde weise in bezug auf die irdischen Verhältnisse dadurch, daß er alt wurde. Das beeinflußte die ganze Zivilisation. War man ein Kind, so sah man zu dem altgewordenen Menschen auf und sagte sich: Wenn ich so alt sein werde wie der, so werde ich weise sein; der ist weise. - Das begründete eine tiefe Verehrung und eine ungeheure Achtung vor dem Alter.

Jene Altersverehrung und Altersachtung war in diesen alten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung bei einem gewissen Teile der Erde vorhanden, allerdings nicht auf dem Teil der Erde, wo dazumal die Menschen mit der zurücklaufenden Stirne gelebt haben, die heute von den Anthropologen ausgegraben werden, wo aber die Menschen gelebt haben, die schon eine hohe Zivilisation gehabt haben. In diesen Gegenden der Erde war die ganze Zivilisation mit einer wunderbaren Altersverehrung und Altersachtung verbunden. Und wir müssen uns fragen: Woher kam denn das, daß der Mensch so etwas an sich durchmachte? - Ja, das kam davon, daß der Mensch gerade weniger in seinem physischen Leibe dazumal lebte, als er heute lebt. Heute kriecht der Mensch, wenn er zwanzig Jahre alt ist, in seinen physischen Leib hinein, oder ist schon ganz in seinen physischen Leib hineingekrochen, macht alle Erlebnisse dieses physischen Leibes mit. Daher fühlt er sich identisch, eins mit seinem physischen Leibe. Womit man sich aber eins fühlt, dessen Schicksal erlebt man mit. Weil in jenen alten Zeiten die Menschen sich viel selbständiger in ihrem physischen Leibe fühlten, ihr Denken viel bildhafter war, ihr Fühlen wie ein innerliches Weben und Leben in Realität war, deshalb war ihnen von vornherein der physische Leib etwas, in dem sie wie in einer Hülle steckten. Und diese Hülle verhärtete sich gegen das Ende des Lebens zu in den Fünfzigerjahren, und der Mensch fühlte, indem dieser Leib mehr der Außenwelt gemäß sich entwickelte, wie dieser Leib nun ein Vermittler von Weisheitsinhalten über die Außenwelt wurde.

Das war anders geworden, als die Menschheit dann, die zivilisierte Menschheit der damaligen Zeit, übertrat in das nächste Kulturzeitalter, das ich in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft» das urpersische genannt habe. Da konnten die Menschen diese Abhängigkeit ihres physischen Leibes von dem Irdischen in den Fünfzigerjahren nicht mehr empfinden. Aber dafür empfanden sie noch in den Vierzigerjahren, vom etwa zweiundvierzigsten, dreiundvierzigsten Jahre bis zum neunundvierzigsten, fünfzigsten Lebensjahre eine andere Beeinflussung durch das Älterwerden ihres physischen Leibes. Sie machten nämlich in dieser Zeit in einer intensiven Weise den Jahreslauf mit. Sie fühlten an ihrem Leibe Frühling, Sommer, Herbst und Winter. Ihr Leib bekam ein sprießendes, sprossendes Wesen im Frühling, Sommer, bekam wiederum ein Wesen des Niederganges im Herbst und im Winter. Der Mensch lebte den Jahreslauf mit, die Luftänderungen. Und mit diesem Wahrnehmen der Luftänderungen, des Jahreslaufes war etwas anderes verbunden. Der Mensch fühlte dadurch, wie sein Sprechen etwas wurde, was eigentlich nicht mehr ihm gehörte. So wie man in den Fünfzigerjahren früher gefühlt hat, daß einem eigentlich der ganze physische Leib nicht mehr gehört, daß er mehr oder weniger der Erde gehört, so fühlte man in der urpersischen Zivilisationsepoche, wie der Leib eigentlich auch mit dem, daß er die Sprache hervorbringt, dem umliegenden Volke angehört, der Umgebung angehört. Der Angehörige der urindischen Kultur, wenn er fünfzig Jahre alt geworden war, sagte gar nicht mehr: Ich gehe -, wenn er seine eigene Empfindung aussprach, sondern er sagte: Mein Leib geht. Er sagte nicht: Ich gehe zur Türe herein -, sondern er sagte: Mein Leib trägt mich zur Türe herein. - Denn er empfand seinen Leib als etwas der Außenwelt Verwandtes, der Erde Verwandtes. Und der Angehörige dieser persischen späteren Zivilisation im fünften, sechsten Jahrtausend vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha, fühlte, daß die Sprache sich selber spricht, daß sie etwas ist, was er mit seiner ganzen Umgebung gemein hat. Man lebte dazumal nicht so international, sondern viel mehr im Volksgefüge darinnen, über die ganze Erde hinüber. Man fühlte, wie einem die Sprache fremd wurde, wie gewissermaßen: Es spricht in einem — gesagt werden konnte, wenn man seine wirklichen Empfindungen ausdrückte.

Und wirklich war es so, wenn die Leute die Vierzigerjahre erreicht hatten, dann drückten sie in einem gewissen Sinne aus, ich möchte sagen, seht respektvoll: Göttlich-geistige Mächte sprechen durch mich. - Der Mensch fühlt auch so, als ob ihm sein Atem selber nicht mehr angehört, als ob er ganz der Umgebung hingegeben wäre. Und in den letzten Dreißigerjahren fühlte man in einer solchen ähnlichen Weise in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Kultur, die vom 3., 4. Jahrtausend bis in das 8., 9. vorchristliche Jahrhundert reichte -, so gegenüber seinen Gedanken, gegenüber seinen Vorstellungen. Nur fühlte man diese Vorstellungen, wenn das fünfunddreißigste Jahr herankam, wie wenn sie mit den Himmelsmächten, mit den Sternengängen verbunden wären.

Wie der Urinder seinen Leib am Ende seines Lebens verbunden fühlte mit der Erde, der Urperser seine Sprache, seinen Atem verbunden fühlte mit dem Jahreslauf, mit der Umgebung, so fühlte der Angehörige der älteren ägyptischen, der Angehörige der alten chaldäischen Kultur, wie sein Denken von dem Sternenlauf dirigiert wurde. Und in die Gedanken herein fühlte er göttliche Sternenmächte spielen.

Nun war es aber so, daß in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Kultur der Mensch bis so zu seinem zweiundvierzigsten, dreiundvierzigsten Jahre diese Abhängigkeit seiner Gedanken von den Himmelsmächten fühlte. Dann trat für ihn nicht mehr etwas ein, was ihm neu war im menschlichen Lebenslauf. Das aber hatte auch schon der Urperser, daß er sein Denken wie von den Sternen ihm eingegeben fühlte; dazu bekam er in den Vierzigerjahren dann dieses Verhältnis zur Sprache, das ich geschildert habe. Und ebenso hatte der Urinder vom fünfunddreißigsten Jahre an das Verhältnis zu den Sternenmächten. Daher war ihm die Astrologie etwas Selbstverständliches. Er bekam nur dazu in den Vierzigerjahren die Abhängigkeit der Sprache von der Umgebung. Und er bekam dazu in den Fünfzigerjahren das ganze Objektivwerden des physischen Leibes, das Schattenhaftwerden des physischen Leibes. Er gewöhnte sich gewissermaßen an das Sterben, weil das Sterben schon in den Fünfzigerjahren an ihn herantrat. Die Seele war nicht so verknüpft mit dem Leibe. Daher traten durch die äußeren Verhältnisse diese Veränderungen mit dem Leibe ein. Und das wurde wieder die Seele gewahr, das nahm die Seele wahr, erlebte die Seele mit. Dadurch lebte sich der Mensch, indem er älter und älter wurde, immer mehr und mehr in die Welt hinein.

Nun kam die griechisch-lateinische Zeit heran, die ja dauerte vom 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert bis in das 15. nachchristliche Jahrhundert hinein, denn da waren noch immer - in den Jahrhunderten vor dem 15. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert - die Nachklänge der griechisch-lateinischen Kultur in den zivilisierten Gegenden. Da war das Zeitalter herangerückt, wo der Mensch sich noch fühlte - wir machen uns heute nach der landläufigen Historie, die wir als eine vollständig unzulängliche Historie in der Schule aufnehmen, von diesen Veränderungen in der Menschheitsentwickelung gar keinen Begriff bis in die Dreißigerjahre hinauf abhängig von seinem physischen Leibe. Aber er fühlte sich jetzt, wenn wir zum Beispiel zum alten Griechen zurückschauen, nicht mehr abhängig von den Sternen, von dem Jahreslauf, nicht mehr abhängig von der Erde, aber er fühlte sich ganz in seinem physischen Leibe noch darinnenstecken. Der Grieche fühlte einen Einklang, eine Harmonie zwischen dem Seelisch-Geistigen und dem Physisch-Leiblichen, nur sonderte sich das PhysischLeibliche nicht mehr von ihm ab. Da kam die Zeit heran, wo der Mensch so mit seinem physischen Leibe verbunden wurde, daß er nicht mehr dem physischen Leibe es überließ, den Weltenlauf in seiner geistigen Gesetzmäßigkeit mitzumachen, wo der Mensch ganz und gar mit seinem physischen Leibe verbunden war. Diese Zeit trat für die Menschheit erst mit dem 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert ein.

Das aber bewirkte einen großen Umschwung in der ganzen Menschheitsentwickelung, insofern die zivilisierte Menschheit in Betracht kommt. Der Mensch fühlte sich, wenn so die Dreißigerjahre herankamen, zwar eins mit seinem physischen Leibe, aber der physische Leib sonderte sich nicht mehr ab. Er fühlte sich verbunden mit ihm. Der physische Leib verriet ihm keine Weltengeheimnisse mehr. Das hatte zur Folge, daß das Menschengeschlecht gerade in diesem Zeitalter ein ganz neues Verhältnis zum Tode gewann. In der Zeit, wo der Mensch gewissermaßen durch die Absonderung seines physischen Leibes sich auf das Sterben vorbereitete, war dieses Sterben für ihn bloß eine Verwandlung im Leben, denn er lernte in den Fünfzigerjahren das allmähliche Sterben kennen. Er empfand es als etwas, was gerade weisheitsvoll in das Weltenall sich hineinlebte. Er empfand den Tod als etwas, was ihn in die Welt hineinführte, in die er sich schon hineingelebt hatte während des Erdenlebens. Der Tod war etwas ganz anderes, als er es später geworden ist. Man möchte sagen: Immer mehr und mehr trat an den Menschen das heran, daß das Seelisch-Geistige das Sterben mitmachte.

Vergleichen Sie nur einmal die Griechenzeit mit der urindischen Zeit. Mit der urindischen Zeit machte sich der Leib selbständig. Der Mensch wußte: Ich bin noch etwas außer meinem selbständig schalenhaft gewordenen Leibe. - Er konnte gar nicht auf den Gedanken kommen, daß der Tod irgend etwas wie ein Ende sei im Leben. Diesen Gedanken gab es während der urindischen Zeit gar nicht im Menschenleben der Erde. Nach und nach erst, und am stärksten im 8. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert, sagte sich der Mensch, er sagte es sich unbewußt in der Empfindung, rationalistisch denken konnte er allerdings über diese Dinge nicht, aber im Empfindungsleben, da war es vorhanden, daß er sich sagte: Mein Körper stirbt, aber ich bin ja mit meinem Seelisch-Geistigen eins mit meinem Leibe. - Er merkte keinen Unterschied mehr des Leiblichen vom Seelisch-Geistigen.

Es kam über die Menschen der Gedanke, der in der ersten Zeit, als er auftrat, ich möchte sagen, aus dunklen Geistestiefen in der Menschheit im 9., im 8. Jahrhundert vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha etwas Furchtbares hatte. Es kam der Gedanke an die Menschen heran: Könnte denn nicht meine Seele denselben Weg machen, nämlich sterben, wie mein Leib stirbt?

Dieser für die urindische Epoche ganz unmögliche Gedanke, der kam immer mehr und mehr herauf, je mehr sich das letzte Jahrtausend der Menschheitsentwickelung dem Mysterium von Golgatha näherte. Und aus dieser Stimmung ist so etwas hervorgegangen wie das berühmte griechische Wort, das Wort der griechischen Helden: Lieber ein Bettler in der Oberwelt, als ein König im Reiche der Schatten. - Denn der Grieche fühlte wenigstens, daß das Leben erstarkt, auch das seelische Leben erstarkt mit dem körperlichen Leben. Das war die Zeit, in der jene Menschheitsstimmung heranreifte, die in der richtigen Weise dem Mysterium von Golgatha entgegenwuchs. Denn woher rührte denn jene Kraft in der Frischhaltung des Seelenwesens, die den alten Menschen den Gedanken unmöglich machte, daß die Seele denselben Todesweg gehen könnte, den der Leib geht? Es machte diese Seelenfrische, diese Seelenunabhängigkeit in der Empfindung für den Menschen das aus, daß der Mensch in jenen alten Zeiten wußte, ich habe ein Leben gehabt, denn er schaute in dieses Leben hinein, das ein vorirdisches Leben war, das ich seelisch-geistig durchgemacht habe, bevor ich heruntergestiegen bin in die physische Erdenwelt. In dieser Welt, in der ich da oben war, war ich verbunden mit dem hohen Sonnenwesen.

Und die alten Mysterien bildeten ihre Lehre dahingehend aus, daß der Mensch im vorirdischen Dasein mit dem Geiste der Sonne verbunden ist, wie im irdischen Leben der Leib des Menschen mit dem physischen Lichte der Sonne verbunden ist. Und die Mysterienlehrer sagten ihren Schülern, und diese sagten es wieder der übrigen Menschheit - sie nannten das hohe Sonnenwesen noch nicht den Christus, aber es war der Christus, wir können daher heute dieses Wort gebrauchen: Der Christus ist ein Wesen, das niemals zur Erde heruntersteigt. Aber ihr wart, bevor ihr auf die Erde heruntergestiegen seid, in der Gemeinschaft des Christus oben in den geistigen Welten im vorirdischen Dasein. Und die Kraft dieses Christus hat euch die Fähigkeit gegeben, unabhängig zu halten eure Seele von dem Leiblichen.

Diese instinktive Erinnerung an ein vorirdisches Dasein ging verloren, indem der Mensch sich immer mehr und mehr identisch mit seinem Leibe fühlte. Und im Griechenzeitalter war für den Erdenmenschen eigentlich nur noch der Anblick des irdischen Lebens für seine instinktiven Bewußtseinsmächte da. Der Grieche lebte gerade dadurch dieses harmonische Erdendasein, daß ihm der Ausblick in die Himmelswelten des Geistes entschwunden war. Der Grieche erlangte so viel in der Bezwingung des Sinnlich-Physischen, daß ihm das Geistige mehr oder weniger aus dem Lebenshorizonte verschwunden war. Nicht mehr war da das Bewußtsein für die Menschen der zivilisierten Gegenden: Wir waren, bevor wir heruntergestiegen sind, in Gegenwart des hohen Sonnenwesens, das man später den Christus nannte.- Dunkel war es, wenn man auf den vorgeburtlichen, auf den vorirdischen Zustand hinschaute. Und das Rätsel des Todes trat auf.

Dasjenige, was nun geschah, müssen wir nicht bloß als eine Menschheitsangelegenheit betrachten, sondern wir müssen es als eine Götterangelegenheit betrachten. Die göttlich-geistigen Mächte, die den Menschen auf die Erde herabgesendet haben, haben ihm die Impulse dieser Entwickelung gegeben, die ich eben geschildert habe. Denn dadurch, daß der Mensch immer mehr und mehr in bezug auf sein Geistig-Seelisches mit dem physischen Leibe zusammenwuchs, sozusagen sein Geistig-Seelisches identifizierte mit dem physischen Leibe, so daß das Rätsel des Todes auch für das Geistig-Seelische herantrat, dadurch drohte für die göttlich-geistigen Mächte, die den Menschen auf die Erde heruntergeschickt haben, daß diesen Göttern der Mensch verlorengehen könne, daß er nach und nach auch seelisch mit seinem Leibe sterben könne.

‚Aber der Mensch wäre niemals ein freies Wesen geworden, ein unabhängiges Wesen, wenn er nicht in seinen Körper hineingewachsen wäre in diesen Zeiten. Frei konnte der Mensch in der Entwickelung nur dadurch werden, daß sich ihm der Blick nach dem Vorirdischen verdunkelte, daß er gewissermaßen ganz verlassen in dem Hause seines physischen Leibes einmal auf der Erde stehen konnte. Dadurch glänzte und leuchtete sein selbständiges Ich auf. Denn das Aufleuchten dieses selbständigen Ichs kann gerade dadurch kommen, daß man ganz und gar in seinen physischen Leib hineinwächst. Wenn man in geistig-seelische Welten hinaufwächst, dann tritt das Ich zurück, dann geht man in das objektiv Geistig-Seelische auf. Ein freies Ich-Wesen konnte der Mensch nur werden, wenn ihm die Impulse der Götter gegeben waren, zusammenzuwachsen immer mehr und mehr mit seinem physischen Leibe. Dann aber mußte das Rätsel des Todes einmal auftreten, weil der physische Leib dem Tode verfallen mußte. Wenn die Menschen nicht auf eine andere Weise den Ausblick erhalten hätten, dann wäre über die Menschen auf der Erde die Überzeugung immer mehr und mehr gekommen: Wir sterben hin mit unserem physischen Leibe auch als Seelen. - Und wir wären heute allerdings schon angekommen, wenn nun nichts anderes eingetreten wäre, wenn der geradlinige Fortlauf der Geschichte sich nur vollzogen hätte, bei der allmenschlichen Überzeugung, daß mit dem Leibe sich auch die Seele ins Grab legt.

Da beschlossen die göttlich-geistigen Mächte, das hohe Sonnenwesen, den Christus, auf die Erde herunterzuschicken, damit die Menschen, die nicht mehr ein Wissen von ihrer Gemeinschaft mit dem Christus im vorirdischen Dasein hatten, ein Bewußtsein von ihrer Gemeinschaft mit dem Christus haben können, der nun auf die Erde zu ihnen heruntergestiegen ist und ihr Menschenschicksal in dem Leibe des Jesus von Nazareth auf Golgatha und in Palästina überhaupt mitgemacht hat. Der Gott stieg herunter auf die Erdenwelt in dem Augenblicke der weltgeschichtlichen Entwickelung der Menschheit, wo die Menschen ihr Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl für das Sonnenwesen jenseits der Erdenwelt verloren hatten.

Warum kam der Christus auf die Erde herunter? Weil die Menschen ihn jetzt auf Erden brauchten, wo sie ihr Bewußtsein zum völligen Ich-Bewußtsein durchgerungen hatten, wo sie auf der Erde erfahren mußten, daß es den Sieger über den Tod gibt, daß es den Sieger gibt, der sterben kann und wieder auferstehen. Dieses Mysterium mußte in der Geschichte vor die Menschen in dem Zeitalter hingestellt werden, in dem die Menschen nicht mehr in das vorirdische Dasein hinaufschauen konnten, um da zu erschauen ihre Gemeinschaft mit dem Unsterblichkeitsgeber für die Menschen, mit dem Christus.

Es ist eine Götterangelegenheit, daß der Christus von den jenseitigen Welten auf die Erde heruntergeschickt worden ist, nicht eine bloße Menschheitsangelegenheit. Denn den Göttern wäre das Menschengeschlecht entsunken, wenn die Götter nicht einen ihrer Höchsten auf die Erde heruntergeschickt hätten, um mit den Menschen, mit dem Menschenschicksal und -sein in die ganze Menschen-Weltenentwickelung ein göttliches Ereignis mitten unter die irdisch-menschlichen Ereignisse einzuweben. Man begreift das Ereignis von Golgatha nicht, wenn man es bloß als ein menschliches Ereignis anschaut. Man begreift das Ereignis von Golgatha erst, wenn man es als eine Götterangelegenheit mitbetrachten kann, wenn man sieht, wie da etwas, was vorher nur in den göttlichen Welten geschaut worden ist, nun in der irdischen Welt geschaut werden konnte.

Sie werden vielleicht jetzt den Einwand erheben: Ja, aber es sind doch nicht alle Menschen Bekenner Christi geworden, und viele glauben nicht an den Christus. Sind die nun in der Lage, zu meinen, ihre Seele lege sich mit dem Leibe sterbend ins Grab? - So dürfen wir das Ereignis von Golgatha nicht auffassen. Für alle die Jahrhunderte, die dem unsrigen vorangegangen sind, gilt es, daß der Christus in unendlicher gnadenvoller Barmherzigkeit nicht nur für diejenigen gestorben ist, die sich zu ihm bekennen, sondern für alle Menschen der Erde. Die Erlösung von dem Rätsel des Todes ist durch Christus für alle Erdenmenschen vollzogen worden. Das ist eine Angelegenheit, die zunächst mit dem menschlichen Bewußtsein nichts zu tun hatte. Es war nur natürlich, daß sich Menschen fanden, die allmählich die Größe und Bedeutung des Mysteriums von Golgatha auch in ihr Bewußtsein aufnahmen. Aber der Christus ist für die Chinesen, Japaner, Hindus ebenso gestorben und auferstanden wie für die Christen.

Erst weil die Menschheitsentwickelung seit dem 15. Jahrhundert und jetzt immer mehr und mehr den Intellektualismus als ihre höchste Seelenkraft betrachten muß, weil der intellektualistische Impuls immer mächtiger und mächtiger gegen die Zukunft hin werden wird, sind wir jetzt in dem Zeitalter, in der Zeitepoche angekommen, wo es sich darum handeln wird, daß die Menschheit, weil es immer mehr und mehr auf ihr Bewußtsein ankommt, daß die Menschen über die ganze Erde hin immer mehr und mehr begreifen lernen dasjenige, was mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha geschehen ist. Dazu allerdings wird es notwendig sein, daß eine Art und Weise der Erkenntnis des Mysteriums von Golgatha auftrete, die nun wirklich für alle Menschen auch begreiflich sein kann.

Die Art und Weise, wie das Christentum durch die bisherigen Jahrhunderte sich entwickelt hat, hatte noch viel von der Eigentümlichkeit der alten Völkerreligionen, der alten ethnischen Religionen. Sie hatte noch nicht das Universalistische, diese christliche Entwickelung. Und die Missionare, wenn sie ausgezogen sind zu andern Bekennern, wurden wenig verstanden oder gar nicht verstanden, weil sie von dem Christus sprachen wie von einem singulären Gotte, der Eigenschaften in ihrer Darstellung, in ihrer Charakteristik hatte, wie die alten Volksgötter sie hatten. So hatte sich schließlich das Christentum auch ausgebreitet. Sehen Sie hin, warum Konstantin, warum Chlodwig das Christentum angenommen haben? Weil sie glaubten, daß ihnen der Christengott mehr helfen kann, als ihnen ihre bisherigen Götter geholfen haben. Sie tauschten gewissermaßen ihre bisherigen Götter gegen den Christengott aus. Dadurch bekam der Christus viele Eigenschaften der alten Volksgötter. Diese Eigenschaften haften dem Christus durch die Jahrhunderte hindurch an.

Aber auf diese Weise konnte das Christentum auch noch nicht die universalistische Religion werden, sondern es mußte das Christentum gerade immer mehr und mehr dazu kommen, ich möchte sagen, vor dem Intellektualismus zurückzutreten. Und wir sehen manche theologische Entwickelung gerade im 19. Jahrhundert, die gar nichts mehr von der übersinnlichen Art des Christus-Ereignisses verstehen konnte, wo man nur noch sprechen wollte von dem Menschen Jesus, dem man allerdings zuschtieb, daß er als Mensch über die übrigen Menschen hinausrage. Aber man wollte nunmehr von dem Menschen Jesus sprechen, nicht von dem Gotte Christus. Von dem Gotte Christus muß wiederum gesprochen werden können, weil dieser Christus in seinem Schicksale durch das Mysterium von Golgatha auf Erden für die Menschen dasjenige dargelebt hat, was er früher für sie in Himmelshöhen war, bevor sie auf die Erde herabgestiegen waren.

Und so müssen wir sagen: Die alten Volksreligionen waren zunächst örtliche Religionen. - Sagen wit, es wurde gebetet zu dem Gott von Theben, es wurde gebetet zu dem Gott, der auf dem Olymp war. Es waren lokale Götter da, man mußte in der Nähe des betreffenden Ortes wohnen. Damit waren die alten Bekenntnisse von vornherein auf einen beschränkten Erdenkreis gebannt. Später wurden an die Stelle der lokalen Götter, die ihren Wohnsitz an einem bestimmten Orte hatten, diejenigen Götter gesetzt, die mehr an die Persönlichkeit der einzelnen Menschen, der führenden Heroen der Völker gebunden waren. Aber immerhin war noch der Gott eines Volkes entweder der noch lebende Heros des Volkes oder die nachgebliebene Seele, die Ahnenseele des Volkes. Das religiöse Bekenntnis hatte etwas Eingeschränktes.

Mit dem Christentum war eine Erdenreligion entwickelt, welche als geistiges Element so für die Erde ist, wie die Sonne als physisches Element für die Erde ist. Das Klima von der Gegend in der Nähe von Olympia ist verschieden von dem Klima in der Nähe von Theben, das Klima in der Nähe von Theben ist verschieden von dem Klima in der Nähe von Bombay. Wenn sich das religiöse Bekenntnis an die Lokalität anschmiegt, dann reicht es auch nicht über die Lokalität hinaus. Aber die Sonne verbreitet ihr Licht über alle Lokalitäten der Erde, scheint allen Menschen als die gleiche Sonne.

So war, als derjenige Gott Menschengestalt angenommen hatte, der seinen physischen Abglanz in der Sonne hat, dem Menschengeschlechte doch ein Gott gegeben, der für alle Menschen der ganzen Erde als Gott gelten kann. Man muß nur die Möglichkeit finden, in das Wesen dieses Christus-Gottes einzudringen, dann wird man ihn darstellen können als den Gott, der für die ganze Erdenmenschheit gilt. Wir sind in der anthroposophischen Lehre erst im Anfange. Wir stammeln gewissermaßen heute erst Anthroposophie. Aber Anthroposophie wird sich immer weiter und weiter entwickeln, und ein Teil ihrer Entwickelung wird darinnen bestehen, daß sie Worte über die Darstellung des Mysteriums von Golgatha finden wird, mit denen sie zu den Hindus, zu den Chinesen, in alle Gebiete der Erde gehen kann, und das Mysterium von Golgatha so verständlich machen können wird, daß der Hindu, der Chinese, der Japaner nicht mehr dasjenige zurückweisen werden, was ihnen über das Mysterium von Golgatha gesagt wird. Dazu ist aber allerdings notwendig, daß dasjenige, was christliche Tradition ist, in vollem Sinne ernst genommen werde. Durch die Jahrhunderte hindurch band man sich mehr oder weniger an das Evangeliumwort. Man studierte die alten Bücher und man studierte auch so, wie man sie verstand. Hier soll gewiß nichts gegen die Gültigkeit der Evangelien gesagt werden. Wir haben in unseren Zyklen über jedes der Evangelien eine besondere anthroposophische Interpretation, wo versucht wird, in den Sinn, in den tieferen Sinn der Evangelien einzudringen. Aber dennoch muß gesagt werden: Warum wird denn gewöhnlich das Wort am Ende des einen Evangeliums so wenig ernst genommen, das da heißt: «Ich hätte euch noch viel zu sagen, allein ihr könnet es jetzt noch nicht verstehen»? Und warum wird denn das andere Wort des Evangeliums so wenig ernst genommen: «Ich bin bei euch alle Tage bis ans Ende der Erdenzeiten»? Denn der Christus hat wahr gesprochen. Er hatte den Menschen nicht nur dasjenige zu sagen, was in den Evangelien aufgezeichnet ist. In den Evangelien ist vom Christus-Wort dasjenige aufgezeichnet, wofür die Menschen der damaligen Zeit, einzelne Menschen wenigstens reif waren. Aber reifer und immer reifer mußte die Menschheit in der Erdenentwickelung werden. Der Christus blieb vom Mysterium von Golgatha an als der lebendige Christus, nicht als der tote Christus unter den Menschen. Und er ist da. Lernen wir seine Sprache kennen, dann werden wir auch wissen können, daß er da ist, daß sein Wort wahr ist: «Ich bin bei euch alle Tage bis ans Ende der Erdenzeiten.» Und seine Sprache, seine Geistsprache möchte sprechen gerade anthroposophische Weltanschauung. Anthroposophische Weltanschauung möchte über die Natur, möchte über ein jegliches Wesen der Erde, möchte über den Sternenhimmel und die Sonne so sprechen, daß in dieser Sprache auch das Mysterium von Golgatha verständlich und der Christus als der immerwährend Daseiende empfunden werden kann. Wir dürfen auch dasjenige, was wir aus der geistigen Welt mit Hilfe derjenigen Macht, die durch das Mysterium von Golgatha vom Himmel auf die Erde herabgestiegen ist, gewinnen, nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha als das Wort Christi ansehen. Wir dürfen das Wort des Paulus wahrmachen: «Nicht ich, sondern der Christus in mir.» Ja, der Christus in mir als Mensch, wenn wir als Menschen sprechen von den geistigen Welten. Denn heute sind wir bereits in ein Zeitalter eingetreten, wo wir nicht einmal mehr wie die Griechen uns noch mit unserem physischen Leibe eins fühlen, aber diesen physischen Leib deutlich als einen harmonisch selbständigen fühlen. Heute dringen wir noch früher als im Griechenzeitalter in die Untergründe unseres physischen Leibes hinein, trennen uns dadurch von dem Spirituellen unserer Umgebung, können uns nur vertiefen, wenn wir die Verbindung mit dem Gotte suchen, der aus den Himmeln zu den Menschen herabgestiegen ist, können uns nur mit dem Gotte, der den Erdenort betreten hat, verbunden fühlen, weil die Menschen nicht mehr in ihrem physischen Dasein mit ihrem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein den Himmelsort unmittelbar betreten können. Wenn wir den Christus finden, das heißt, wenn wir uns eröffnen die geistige Welt, dann finden wir auch wiederum den Zugang zu der übersinnlichen Welt, aber jetzt nicht durch den physischen Leib, wie das in alten Zeiten der Fall war, sondern durch die erhöhte Kraft der Seele. Und diese bekommen wir jetzt, wo der Parallelismus zwischen der leiblichen und seelischen Entwickelung in die Zwanzigerjahre nur hinaufgeht später wird er noch weniger weit hinaufgehen -, dadurch, daß wir uns mit der Erkenntnis eines übersinnlichen Ereignisses durchdringen, nämlich des Mysteriums von Golgatha mitten unter sinnlichen Ereignissen der Erdenentwickelung. Alles ging auf Erden sinnlich zu. Nur im Mysterium von Golgatha mischte sich unter die Erdenereignisse ein Übersinnliches. Das kann nur durch eine übersinnliche Erkenntnis auch begriffen werden. So bekommen wir als Menschen in der Seele durch unsere Verbindung mit dem Christus die starke Kraft, ein Verhältnis zu der übersinnlichen Welt zu gewinnen, was die Menschen früher dadurch gewannen, daß sie noch mit ihrem physischen Leibe so verbunden waren, daß der Leib ihnen schalenartig werden konnte, daß sie noch vor dem physischen Tode das Herannahen dieses Todes verspürten und dadurch zusammenwuchsen mit dem Geiste, der in der Umgebung enthalten ist.

Wir müssen seelisch das erreichen, was auf eine mehr durch den Leib vermittelte Art in den älteren Zeiten erreicht worden ist. Wenn wir auch noch so sehr bewundern dasjenige, was übrigens nicht aus der urindischen Zeit auf uns gekommen ist, sondern was später geblieben ist aus dieser urindischen Zeit in der Herrlichkeit der Veden, der Großartigkeit der Vedantaphilosophie, in dem Glanzvollen der Bhagavad Gita, so müssen wir wissen, das konnte in jenen alten Zeiten nur dadurch errungen werden, daß der Mensch in dieser Weise, indem er ins Alter hineinwuchs, von seinem Leibe etwas Spirituelles in sich zurückgestrahlt bekam.

Der Mensch wurde sozusagen in jenen älteren Zeiten, in denen vom fünfunddreißigsten Jahre das Leben abwärts geht, entschädigt für dieses Abwärtsgehen des Leibes dadurch, daß gewissermaßen aus dem härter werdenden Leib, aus dem vertrocknet werdenden, runzelig werdenden Leib der Geist sich herauspreßte, den der Mensch wahrnahm. Man dichtete die großen philosophischen Dichtungen der alten Zeiten nicht als Jüngling, man dichtete als weise gewordener alter Patriarch. Aber es war dieses das Ergebnis desjenigen, was man vom Leibe hatte. Wir müssen in diesem anders gewordenen Zeitalter der Menschheitsentwickelung dasjenige, was in alten Zeiten die Menschen von dem Leibe hatten, von der stärker gewordenen Seele haben. Unser Leib wird alt. Wir bleiben mit ihm verbunden. Wir lassen den Geist nicht aus ihm herauskommen, weil wir diesen Leib frühzeitig in Anspruch nehmen.

Würden wir das nicht tun, würden wir nicht freie Menschen geworden sein. Wir müssen das als unser rechtmäßiges Erdenschicksal hinnehmen. Aber wir müssen uns auch klar sein, unsere Seele muß darum um so stärker werden. Dasjenige, was uns gewissermaßen an geistiger Stärke, die dem schwachgewordenen Leibe in alten Zeiten entsprochen hat, nicht mehr zufließt, das müssen wir durch die eigene Verstärkung unserer Seele erwerben. Und diese Verstärkung unserer Seele ergibt sich, wenn wir wirklich in lebendigem Anschauen auf das große, gewaltige, auf das Himmelsereignis hinblicken, das mitten im Irdischen mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha geschehen ist. Im Anblicke des Mysteriums von Golgatha und im Bewußtsein, daß die Nachwirkung des Mysteriums von Golgatha auch unter uns lebt, im Geistig-Übersinnlichen da ist, im Anblicke dieses Ereignisses stärkt sich unser Seelisch-Geistiges, und wir kommen wiederum an die geistige Welt heran.

Ja, der Christus ist auf die Erde heruntergestiegen, damit die Menschen ihn auf der Erde schauen konnten, als sie ihn im Himmel nicht mehr erinnernd schauen konnten. Das ist es, was eigentlich uns das Mysterium von Golgatha von dem heutigen Gesichtspunkte aus erst recht vor das geistige Auge rückt.

Die Jünger haben noch einen Rest des alten Hellsehens gehabt, konnten daher den Christus als ihren Lehrer auch nach der Auferstehung, wo er im Geistleib unter ihnen lebte, haben. Aber diese Kraft schwand ihnen allmählich dahin. Und das völlige Dahinschwinden dieser Kraft wird symbolisch in dem Feste der Himmelfahrt dargestellt. Die Jünger verfielen in eine tiefe Trauer, weil sie meinen mußten, der Christus sei nun nicht mehr da. Das Ereignis von Golgatha hatten sie mitgemacht. Aber als ihnen der Christus aus dem Bewußtsein hinweggegangen war - sie sahen die Christus-Gestalt in den Wolken entschwinden, das heißt, aus ihrem Bewußtsein hinweggehen -, mußte es ihnen vorkommen, als wenn der Christus doch jetzt nicht mehr auf Erden wäre. Da verfielen sie in eine tiefe Trauer. Und alle wirkliche Erkenntnis ist aus der Trauer, aus dem Schmerz, aus dem Leid heraus geboren. Aus der Lust wird wahre, tiefe Erkenntnis nicht geboren. Wahre, tiefe Erkenntnis wird aus dem Leid geboren. Und aus dem Leid, das aus dem Himmelfahrtsfeste für die Jünger Christi sich ergeben hat, aus diesem tiefen Seelenleide ist das Pfingstmysterium herausgewachsen. Für das äußere instinktive Hellsehen der Jünger schwand der Anblick Christi dahin. Im Inneren ging ihnen die Kraft des Christus auf. Der Christus hatte ihnen den Geist gesandt, der ihrer Seele möglich machte, sein Christus-Dasein in ihrem Inneren zu erfühlen. Das gab dem ersten Pfingstfeste in der Menschheitsentwickelung seinen Inhalt. Es folgte auf das Himmelfahrtsfest das Pfingstfest. Der Christus, der für den äußeren hellseherischen Anblick, wie er als Erbschaft den Jüngern aus alten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung geblieben ist, verschwunden war, trat am Pfingstfeste in dem innerlichen Erleben der Jünger auf. Die feurigen Zungen sind nichts anderes als das Aufleben des inneren Christus in den Seelen seiner Schüler, in den Seelen seiner Jünger. Das Pfingstfest mußte sich mit innerer Notwendigkeit an das Himmelfahrtsfest anschließen.

So sehen wir, wie das Mysterium von Golgatha in seiner Totalität sich in die Menschheitsentwickelung hineinstellt. Und so stellte es sich hinein, so wirkte es durch die Zeiten hindurch bis auf unsere Zeit. Und wie wir in würdiger Weise heute uns nähern dem, was für uns in der unmittelbaren Gegenwart, ich möchte sagen, am heutigen Tage der historischen Menschheitsentwickelung das Mysterium von Golgatha sein kann, das wollen wir aus dem, was wir in diesen Tagen betrachtet haben, herausentwickeln in dem morgigen letzten Vortrage, den ich vor Ihnen halten darf. Da wollen wir das eigentliche Pfingstmysterium, aber in seiner Bedeutung für die unmittelbare Gegenwart, vor unsere Seele hinstellen und damit unseren Vortragszyklus dann beschließen.

Fifth Lecture

It is impossible to fully assess the human being in the present day without considering a larger period through which human beings have developed. For we must bear in mind - this emerges from the other presentations of anthroposophy, also emerges from the presentations I have already given here in these days - that our souls go through repeated earth lives, between which there is always the life between death and a new birth, so that we have passed through the most varied developmental epochs of humanity with our souls. If one considers this, then one must be clear about the fact that one can only fully grasp the human being if one takes into account a larger period of time in which our souls have repeatedly passed through life on earth.

I have already spoken here in lectures in Kristiania about the successive periods of development as they preceded the Mystery of Golgotha, as they follow this Mystery of Golgotha. Today I must do this again from a certain point of view. Humanity has undergone great changes in the course of its development. This is usually given far too little consideration. It is so easy to think: well, man is just like this and that, and if you look back into the past, man has essentially always been like this. We know there was a Greek period, an Egyptian period, there were other periods before that. For the times of which we speak in this way, we think that the human being has always been roughly the same as it is today. One looks at the impulses of cultural development, but as far as the main aspect of soul life is concerned, one thinks, at least for historical times, that human beings have always been like they are today. However, one then takes a long pause in the retrospective view and usually arrives at the stage that is described today with a certain preference, the stage where man is said to have been ape-like.

Human evolution was not at all as we imagine it. In order to understand how it has changed, let us realize that in our age there is a relatively great dependence between the soul-spiritual that develops in us and the physical-bodily for the first ages of man's life.

Just consider the first years of childhood up to the change of teeth and the great change that must strike every impartial observer, which I have often characterized here, that takes place with the human being when he undergoes the change of teeth. The body undergoes the change of teeth, the whole constitution of the child's soul changes. Then again there is a period of life up to sexual maturity. We all know that at this age the mental and spiritual development goes hand in hand with the physical development. And we also notice the dependence of the soul-spiritual being on the physical for the later age up to the twenties, if we are only impartial enough, even if today in the time of the youth movement - we say it without a detrimental tone - this dependence is no longer spoken of strongly and gladly, especially among the youth. One naturally thinks that when one has reached the age of sixteen or seventeen, one is a young lady, a young man, fully developed, and if one then ascribes special intellectual abilities to oneself, one writes feuilletons at the age of twenty-one. But in any case, one would like to blur the fact that at this age there is still a very strong dependence of the mental-spiritual on the physical. In any case, this dependence more or less ceases for people today at a certain age. People become adults in their twenties. And then he no longer feels dependent on the physical in the way that he would have to feel dependent if he went through these states with full consciousness, the child from the change of teeth, from the maturing of the change of teeth, again from the maturing to sexual maturity and so on. There was still a feeling in relatively recent ages of this maturing of man, in that a clear distinction was made that man had to be treated differently when he went through the so-called apprenticeship period, the journeyman period, and the master period came relatively late.

But for today's man, as I said, it is quite true that from a certain age onwards he no longer feels strongly dependent on the physical in his soul and spirit. Certainly, one notices when one has already reached a certain respectable age that one then again becomes dependent on the physical. One notices when one's legs no longer want to work properly, when wrinkles appear on one's face, when one's hair turns pale, that a certain dependence on the physical occurs. But one does not ascribe to this a real parallelism of the physical and the mental. One simply feels that the body is weakening in its powers, but one feels that one actually remains and must remain more or less independent of the physical-physical in the spiritual-spiritual, even in our age. However, this was not always the case, but if we go back to earlier epochs in the development of mankind, we find that people remained as vividly dependent on the physical up into old age as a child today is dependent on the physical in its soul from the change of teeth, from sexual maturity. And if we go back to the first epoch, which we cannot trace outwardly historically, but which we can trace spiritually as the epoch of human development after the great, tremendous Atlantean catastrophe, through which the continents on earth were rearranged, If we go back to this first epoch, which I have called the primeval Indian epoch in my “Secret Science in Outline”, man felt himself, as the child does from the change of teeth, the youth and the virgin from sexual maturity, dependent on the physical-feminine up to the age of fifty. In other words, just as one experiences the ascending development of growth in childhood today, so one experiences the descending development in the soul-spiritual. And it was precisely in the fifties that people, when they reached this age, matured inwardly into something by simply becoming older, just as one matures into something today when one has reached sexual maturity. And this was the age, seven or eight thousand years before the Mystery of Golgotha, when man looked expectantly all his life towards this aging, because he said to himself: "Something is simply revealed to me out of my physical constitution which I simply cannot experience in the earlier age, before I am forty-nine or fifty years old. - It is something that was present in that civilization, something that is of course terribly shocking for people today. Just imagine a person today who believes that when he reaches his twenties, he is simply a made man. Imagine that he is now supposed to wait for something to be revealed to him later, simply through age, that he cannot know beforehand, that he cannot feel and sense beforehand!

Through the physical constitution one came to feel in the fifties already something of what one could call a detachment of the physical body from the soul-spiritual. To a certain extent, one felt more and more how the physical approached the corporeal. In this alienation of the physical body, in this withdrawal of the physical body from the earth elements, one felt the release of the soul-spiritual. And precisely by feeling the body like a garment, one sensed the relationship of the body with the earthly, with that which will one day belong to the earth in death. In a way, one was less surprised than today that one must one day discard the body and hand it over to the earthly powers, because one went through this process of discarding the body slowly and gradually. That sounds paradoxical, because one imagines that it is terrible to carry one's physical body around like a corpse in the process of becoming. But it wasn't just that you felt it like something that was uncomfortable, something that was turning into a kind of rottenness. No, one felt it as an independent shell and husk, which one felt to be full of life despite its becoming earthy, but the human physical body became shell-like, husk-like for these fifties. But through this, simply because of the nature of the body, through this resemblance of the body to the earthly, one learned something that today can only be learned through abstract science. For example, we learned something about the inner nature of metals. A man who was fifty years old had an instinct for distinguishing between copper, silver and gold. He felt the similarity of these metals to his earthy organism. He felt differently towards a rock crystal than towards the soil. A man became wise in relation to earthly conditions by growing old. This influenced the whole civilization. If you were a child, you looked up to the old man and said to yourself: "When I am as old as he is, I will be wise; he is wise. - This gave rise to a deep reverence and tremendous respect for old age.

This reverence and respect for old age was present in a certain part of the earth in these ancient times of human development, but not in the part of the earth where the people with the receding foreheads lived, who are being excavated by anthropologists today, but where people who already had a high civilization lived. In these parts of the world, the entire civilization was associated with a wonderful reverence and respect for old age. And we have to ask ourselves: where did it come from that man went through something like that? - Yes, it came from the fact that man lived less in his physical body then than he does today. Today the human being, when he is twenty years old, crawls into his physical body, or has already crawled completely into his physical body, experiences all the experiences of this physical body. Therefore he feels identical, one with his physical body. But whatever one feels one with, one also experiences its fate. Because in those ancient times people felt much more independent in their physical body, their thinking was much more pictorial, their feeling was like an inner weaving and living in reality, therefore the physical body was something in which they were stuck from the outset as if in a shell. And this shell hardened towards the end of life in the fifties, and man felt, as this body developed more in accordance with the outside world, how this body now became a mediator of wisdom content about the outside world.

This became different when humanity, the civilized humanity of that time, entered the next cultural age, which I have called the Urperian age in my “Secret Science”. In the fifties, people could no longer feel this dependence of their physical body on the earthly. But in the forties, from about the age of forty-two or forty-three until the age of forty-nine or fifty, they felt another influence through the aging of their physical body. During this time, they experienced the course of the year in an intense way. They felt spring, summer, fall and winter in their bodies. Their bodies took on a sprouting, sprouting nature in spring and summer, and in turn took on a nature of decline in fall and winter. Man lived the course of the year, the changes in the air. And this perception of the changes in the air, of the course of the year, was connected with something else. People felt how their speech became something that no longer belonged to them. Just as in the fifties people used to feel that their whole physical body no longer belonged to them, that it more or less belonged to the earth, so in the primeval Persian epoch of civilization they felt that their body actually belonged to the surrounding people, that it belonged to the environment, even as it produced speech. The member of the primeval Indian civilization, when he had reached the age of fifty, no longer said: I am going - when he expressed his own feeling, but he said: My body is going. He did not say: I am going in the door - but he said: My body is carrying me in the door. - For he perceived his body as something related to the outside world, related to the earth. And the member of this later Persian civilization in the fifth or sixth millennium before the Mystery of Golgotha felt that language speaks for itself, that it is something he has in common with his whole environment. At that time, people did not live so internationally, but much more in the national structure within it, across the whole earth. One felt how the language became foreign to one, how, as it were: It speaks in you - could be said when you expressed your real feelings.

And it really was like that, when people reached their forties, they expressed in a certain sense, I would say, respectfully: divine-spiritual powers speak through me. - Man also feels as if his own breath no longer belongs to him, as if he were completely surrendered to his surroundings. And in the last thirties, people felt in a similar way in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, which stretched from the 3rd, 4th millennium to the 8th, 9th century before Christ - towards their thoughts, towards their ideas. Only when the thirty-fifth year approached, these ideas were felt as if they were connected with the powers of the heavens, with the courses of the stars.

As the primeval Indian felt his body connected with the earth at the end of his life, as the primeval Persian felt his speech, his breath connected with the course of the year, with the environment, so the member of the older Egyptian, the member of the old Chaldean culture, felt how his thinking was directed by the course of the stars. And he felt divine star powers playing into his thoughts.

Now it was so that in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture man felt this dependence of his thoughts on the heavenly powers up to his forty-second, forty-third year. Then nothing new occurred to him in the course of human life. But the primal man already had this, that he felt his thinking was inspired by the stars; in addition, in his forties he developed the relationship to language that I have described. And in the same way, from the age of thirty-five, the primal Indian had a relationship with the star powers. Astrology was therefore something natural to him. He only became aware of the dependence of language on the environment in his forties. And in the fifties he also became aware of the entire objective nature of the physical body, the shadowy nature of the physical body. In a way, he became accustomed to dying, because dying had already approached him in the fifties. The soul was not so connected to the body. Therefore, these changes occurred with the body as a result of external circumstances. And the soul became aware of this again, the soul perceived it, the soul experienced it. As a result, the human being grew older and older and became more and more involved in the world.

Now the Greco-Latin period approached, which lasted from the 8th century before Christ until the 15th century after Christ, for there were still - in the centuries before the 15th century after Christ - the echoes of Greco-Latin culture in the civilized regions. The age had approached when man still felt - according to popular history, which we take as a completely inadequate history at school, we have no idea of these changes in the development of mankind up to the thirties - dependent on his physical body. But now, if we look back to the ancient Greeks, for example, he no longer felt dependent on the stars, on the course of the year, no longer dependent on the earth, but he felt that he was still completely stuck in his physical body. The Greek felt a unity, a harmony between the soul-spiritual and the physical-corporeal, but the physical-corporeal no longer separated itself from him. The time came when man was so connected with his physical body that he no longer left it to the physical body to follow the course of the world in its spiritual lawfulness, when man was completely connected with his physical body. This time did not occur for mankind until the 8th century BC.

But this brought about a great change in the whole development of mankind, as far as civilized mankind is concerned. When the thirties approached, man felt at one with his physical body, but the physical body no longer separated itself. He felt connected with it. The physical body no longer revealed the secrets of the world to him. As a result, it was precisely in this age that the human race acquired a completely new relationship to death. At the time when man was, so to speak, preparing himself for death through the separation of his physical body, this death was for him merely a transformation in life, for in the fifties he became acquainted with gradual dying. He perceived it as something that was just wisely living itself into the universe. He experienced death as something that led him into the world into which he had already lived during his life on earth. Death was something quite different from what it later became. One would like to say: more and more, man came to realize that the soul-spiritual took part in dying.

Just compare the Greek period with the primeval Indian period. In the primeval Indian period the body became independent. Man knew: I am something other than my body, which has become independent and shell-like. - He could not even think that death was anything like an end in life. This thought did not exist at all in human life on earth during the primeval Indian period. Only gradually, and most strongly in the 8th century B.C., did man say to himself, he said it unconsciously in his feelings, although he could not think rationally about these things, but in his emotional life it was there that he said to himself: My body dies, but I am one with my soul-spiritual being with my body. - He no longer noticed any difference between the physical and the spiritual.

The thought came over people, which at the first time it appeared, I would like to say, from the dark depths of the spirit in humanity in the 9th, in the 8th century before the Mystery of Golgotha, had something terrible about it. The thought came to people: Couldn't my soul go the same way, namely die, as my body dies?

This thought, quite impossible for the primeval Indian epoch, came up more and more as the last millennium of human development approached the Mystery of Golgotha. And from this mood emerged something like the famous Greek word, the word of the Greek heroes: Better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows. - For the Greek at least felt that life was growing stronger, even the spiritual life grew stronger with the physical life. That was the time in which that mood of humanity matured which grew in the right way towards the Mystery of Golgotha. For whence came that strength in keeping the soul fresh which made it impossible for the ancients to think that the soul could go the same way of death as the body? It was this freshness of soul, this independence of soul in the feeling for man that made it so that man in those old times knew that I had had a life, for he looked into this life, which was a pre-earthly life, which I had gone through soul-spiritually before I descended into the physical earth world. In this world, in which I was up there, I was connected with the high solar being.

And the ancient Mysteries developed their teaching to the effect that man in pre-earthly existence is connected with the spirit of the sun, just as in earthly life the body of man is connected with the physical light of the sun. And the Mystery Teachers told their disciples, and they in turn told the rest of humanity - they did not yet call the high solar being the Christ, but it was the Christ, so we can use this word today: The Christ is a being who never descends to earth. But before you descended to earth, you were in the community of the Christ above in the spiritual worlds in the pre-earthly existence. And the power of this Christ has given you the ability to keep your soul independent of the physical.

This instinctive memory of a pre-earthly existence was lost as man felt more and more identical with his body. And in the Greek age, only the sight of earthly life was actually still there for man's instinctive powers of consciousness. The Greek lived this harmonious earthly existence precisely because he had lost his view of the heavenly worlds of the spirit. The Greek achieved so much in the conquest of the sensual-physical that the spiritual had more or less disappeared from the horizon of his life. There was no longer any consciousness for the people of the civilized regions: We were, before we descended, in the presence of the high solar being, which was later called the Christ.- Dark was it when one looked toward the pre-natal, the pre-earthly state. And the riddle of death arose.

We must not regard what happened now merely as a human affair, but we must regard it as a divine affair. The divine-spiritual powers that sent man down to earth gave him the impulses for the development I have just described. For by the fact that man grew more and more together with the physical body with regard to his spiritual-soul, so to speak identified his spiritual-soul with the physical body, so that the riddle of death also approached for the spiritual-soul, thereby threatened the divine-spiritual powers, which sent man down to earth, that man could be lost to these gods, that he could gradually also die spiritually with his body.

'But man would never have become a free being, an independent being, if he had not grown into his body in these times. Man could only become free in his development through the fact that his view of the pre-earthly was darkened, that he could, as it were, stand completely abandoned in the house of his physical body once on earth. This caused his independent ego to shine and light up. For the illumination of this independent ego can come precisely through the fact that one grows completely into one's physical body. When one grows up into spiritual-soul worlds, then the ego recedes, then one emerges into the objective spiritual-soul. Man could only become a free ego-being when the impulses of the gods were given to him to grow together more and more with his physical body. But then the riddle of death had to occur, because the physical body had to succumb to death. If people had not received the view in a different way, then the conviction would have come over people on earth more and more: We die with our physical body also as souls. - And we would have arrived today, however, if nothing else had happened, if the straightforward course of history had only taken place with the all-human conviction that the soul also goes to the grave with the body.

Then the divine-spiritual powers decided to send the high solar being, the Christ, down to earth so that people, who no longer had any knowledge of their fellowship with the Christ in the pre-earthly existence, could have an awareness of their fellowship with the Christ, who now descended to earth to them and participated in their human fate in the body of Jesus of Nazareth on Golgotha and in Palestine in general. The God descended to the earth world at the moment of the world-historical development of humanity when people had lost their sense of belonging to the solar being beyond the earth world.

Why did the Christ come down to earth? Because men needed him now on earth, when they had brought their consciousness to complete ego-consciousness, when they had to experience on earth that there is a victor over death, that there is a victor who can die and rise again. This mystery had to be placed before men in history in the age in which men could no longer look up into the pre-earthly existence in order to behold there their communion with the Giver of immortality for men, with the Christ.

It is a matter for the gods that the Christ was sent down to earth from the worlds beyond, not merely a matter for humanity. For the human race would have been lost to the gods if the gods had not sent one of their highest ones down to earth in order to interweave a divine event with human beings, with human destiny and being, into the whole development of the human world in the midst of the earthly-human events. One does not understand the event of Golgotha if one looks at it merely as a human event. One only understands the event of Golgotha when one can see it as a divine matter, when one sees how something that was previously only seen in the divine worlds could now be seen in the earthly world.

You may now raise the objection: Yes, but not all people have become confessors of Christ, and many do not believe in Christ. Are they now in a position to think that their soul is going to the grave with their body? - This is not how we should understand the event of Golgotha. For all the centuries that preceded ours, it is true that the Christ died in infinite merciful compassion not only for those who profess Him, but for all people on earth. Redemption from the mystery of death has been accomplished through Christ for all people on earth. This is a matter that initially had nothing to do with human consciousness. It was only natural that people should gradually come to realize the greatness and significance of the Mystery of Golgotha. But the Christ died and rose again for the Chinese, Japanese and Hindus just as he did for the Christians.

Because the development of mankind since the 15th century and now more and more must regard intellectualism as its highest soul-power, because the intellectualistic impulse will become more and more powerful towards the future, we have now arrived at the age, at the epoch, where it will be a matter of mankind, because it depends more and more on its consciousness, that people over the whole earth learn to understand more and more what happened with the Mystery of Golgotha. For this, however, it will be necessary that a way of recognizing the Mystery of Golgotha emerges which can now really be understood by all people.

The way in which Christianity has developed through the centuries to date still had much of the peculiarity of the old religions of the nations, the old ethnic religions. It did not yet have the universalistic, this Christian development. And the missionaries, when they went out to other confessors, were little understood or not understood at all, because they spoke of Christ as a singular God, who had qualities in their representation, in their characteristics, such as the old folk gods had. This is how Christianity eventually spread. Do you see why Constantine and Clovis adopted Christianity? Because they believed that the Christian God could help them more than their previous gods had helped them. In a sense, they exchanged their previous gods for the Christian god. This gave the Christ many of the characteristics of the old folk gods. These characteristics have remained with the Christ throughout the centuries.

But in this way Christianity could not yet become the universalistic religion, but Christianity had to come more and more, I would say, to take a back seat to intellectualism. And we see many a theological development, especially in the 19th century, which could no longer understand anything of the supersensible nature of the Christ-event, where one only wanted to speak of the man Jesus, to whom one admittedly ascribed that as a man he stood above the rest of men. But now one wanted to speak of the man Jesus, not of the God Christ. It must again be possible to speak of the God Christ, because this Christ, in his destiny through the Mystery of Golgotha, lived out for men on earth what he was for them in heavenly heights before they descended to earth.

And so we must say: the old popular religions were initially local religions. - Let's say they prayed to the god of Thebes, they prayed to the god who was on Mount Olympus. There were local gods, you had to live near the place in question. This meant that the old beliefs were confined to a limited earthly circle from the outset. Later, the local gods, who had their residence in a particular place, were replaced by gods who were more closely linked to the personality of the individual people, the leading heroes of the nations. However, the god of a people was still either the living hero of the people or the surviving soul, the ancestral soul of the people. The religious confession had something restricted about it.

With Christianity an earth religion was developed, which as a spiritual element is for the earth as the sun as a physical element is for the earth. The climate of the region near Olympia is different from the climate near Thebes, the climate near Thebes is different from the climate near Bombay. If the religious creed clings to the locality, then it does not extend beyond the locality. But the sun spreads its light over all the localities of the earth, shining to all men as the same sun.

So when the God who has his physical reflection in the sun had taken on human form, a God was given to the human race who can be regarded as God for all people of the whole earth. One only has to find the possibility of penetrating into the nature of this Christ-God, then one will be able to portray him as the God who applies to all earthly humanity. We are only at the beginning of the anthroposophical teaching. To a certain extent we are only stammering anthroposophy today. But anthroposophy will continue to develop further and further, and part of its development will consist in finding words about the presentation of the Mystery of Golgotha with which it can go to the Hindus, to the Chinese, to all regions of the earth, and will be able to make the Mystery of Golgotha so comprehensible that the Hindu, the Chinese, the Japanese will no longer reject what is said to them about the Mystery of Golgotha. For this, however, it is necessary that what is Christian tradition is taken seriously in the full sense. Throughout the centuries, people have been more or less bound to the Gospel. The old books were studied and they were studied as they were understood. Certainly nothing should be said here against the validity of the Gospels. In our cycles we have a special anthroposophical interpretation of each of the Gospels, where an attempt is made to penetrate into the meaning, the deeper meaning of the Gospels. But nevertheless it must be said: Why is it that the words at the end of one Gospel are usually taken so little seriously: “I still have much to say to you, but you cannot yet understand it”? And why is the other word of the Gospel taken so little seriously: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”? Because Christ spoke the truth. He did not only have to tell people what is recorded in the Gospels. In the Gospels, the word of Christ is recorded in such a way that the people of that time, individual people, were at least mature. But humanity had to become more and more mature in its development on earth. The Christ remained from the Mystery of Golgotha as the living Christ, not as the dead Christ among men. And he is there. If we get to know his language, then we will also be able to know that he is there, that his word is true: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” And his language, his spiritual language, is precisely what the anthroposophical world view wants to speak. Anthroposophical worldview wants to speak about nature, wants to speak about every being on earth, wants to speak about the starry sky and the sun in such a way that in this language the Mystery of Golgotha can also be understood and the Christ can be perceived as the everlasting Being. We may also regard that which we gain from the spiritual world with the help of the power that descended from heaven to earth through the Mystery of Golgotha as the Word of Christ. We can make Paul's words come true: “Not I, but the Christ in me.” Yes, the Christ in me as a human being, when we speak as human beings of the spiritual worlds. For today we have already entered an age where we no longer even feel as one with our physical body as the Greeks did, but where we clearly feel this physical body as a harmoniously independent one. Today we penetrate even earlier than in the Greek age into the subsoil of our physical body, thereby separating ourselves from the spiritual of our surroundings, we can only deepen ourselves if we seek the connection with the God who has descended from the heavens to men, we can only feel connected with the God who has entered the place on earth, because men can no longer enter the heavenly place directly in their physical existence with their ordinary consciousness. When we find the Christ, that is, when we open up the spiritual world, then we also find access to the supersensible world, but now not through the physical body, as was the case in ancient times, but through the elevated power of the soul. And we get this now, when the parallelism between the bodily and soul development only goes up into the twenties - later it will go up even less far - by penetrating ourselves with the knowledge of a supersensible event, namely the Mystery of Golgotha in the midst of sensuous events of earthly development. Everything on earth was sensual. Only in the Mystery of Golgotha did the supersensible mingle with the earthly events. This can only be understood through supersensible knowledge. Thus, through our connection with the Christ, we as human beings receive the strong power in the soul to gain a relationship to the supersensible world, which people used to gain through the fact that they were still so connected to their physical body that the body could become shell-like to them, that they felt the approach of this death even before physical death and thus grew together with the spirit contained in the environment.

We must achieve in the soul what was achieved in the older times in a way that was more mediated through the body. No matter how much we admire that which, by the way, did not come to us from the primeval Indian times, but which remained later from these primeval Indian times in the glory of the Vedas, the magnificence of the Vedanta philosophy, in the splendor of the Bhagavad Gita, we must know that in those ancient times this could only be achieved by the fact that man in this way, as he grew into old age, had something spiritual radiated back into him from his body.

In those older times, in which life goes downwards from the age of thirty-five, man was, so to speak, compensated for this decline of the body by the fact that the spirit, which man perceived, was pressed out of the hardening body, out of the withering, wrinkling body. One did not write the great philosophical poems of old as a youth, one wrote as an old patriarch who had become wise. But this was the result of what one had of the body. In this different age of human development, we must have what people had of the body in ancient times from the soul, which has become stronger. Our body grows old. We remain connected to it. We do not allow the spirit to leave it because we make use of this body at an early stage.

If we did not do this, we would not have become free people. We must accept this as our rightful destiny on earth. But we must also realize that our soul must become all the stronger for it. That which no longer flows to us, so to speak, in spiritual strength, which corresponded to the weakened body in ancient times, we must acquire through our own strengthening of our soul. And this strengthening of our soul comes about when we really look in living contemplation at the great, mighty, heavenly event that happened in the midst of the earthly with the Mystery of Golgotha. In the sight of the Mystery of Golgotha and in the awareness that the after-effect of the Mystery of Golgotha also lives among us, is there in the spiritual-supersensible, in the sight of this event our soul-spiritual is strengthened, and we again come closer to the spiritual world.

Yes, the Christ descended to earth so that people could see him on earth when they could no longer remember him in heaven. This is what actually brings the Mystery of Golgotha before our spiritual eyes from today's point of view.

The disciples still had a remnant of the old clairvoyance and were therefore able to have Christ as their teacher even after the resurrection, when he lived among them in the spiritual body. But this power gradually faded away. And the complete disappearance of this power is symbolically represented in the feast of the Ascension. The disciples fell into deep mourning because they must have thought that the Christ was no longer there. They had experienced the event of Golgotha. But when the Christ had passed from their consciousness - they saw the figure of Christ vanish into the clouds, that is, pass from their consciousness - it must have seemed to them that the Christ was no longer on earth. They fell into a deep sadness. And all real knowledge is born out of sorrow, out of pain, out of suffering. True, deep knowledge is not born out of pleasure. True, deep knowledge is born out of suffering. And the mystery of Pentecost grew out of the suffering that resulted for the disciples of Christ from the feast of the Ascension, out of this deep suffering of the soul. The outward instinctive clairvoyance of the disciples lost sight of Christ. Inwardly, the power of Christ was revealed to them. The Christ had sent them the spirit that made it possible for their souls to feel his Christ existence within them. This gave the first Pentecost in the development of mankind its content. The feast of Ascension was followed by the feast of Pentecost. The Christ, who had disappeared from the outer clairvoyant sight, as it remained as an inheritance to the disciples from the old times of human development, appeared on the feast of Pentecost in the inner experience of the disciples. The fiery tongues are nothing other than the revival of the inner Christ in the souls of his pupils, in the souls of his disciples. The feast of Pentecost had to follow the feast of the Ascension with inner necessity.

So we see how the Mystery of Golgotha in its totality places itself in the development of mankind. And this is the way it has been placed, this is the way it has worked through the ages up to our time. And how we approach today in a worthy manner what the Mystery of Golgotha can be for us in the immediate present, I would like to say, on this day of the historical development of mankind, is what we want to develop from what we have been looking at these days in tomorrow's last lecture, which I am allowed to give to you. There we want to place the actual mystery of Pentecost, but in its significance for the immediate present, before our souls and then conclude our lecture cycle with it.